(Unedited) Podcast Transcript 505: Urgency and Vision Zero
October 23, 2024
This week we’re joined by Leah Shahum, Executive Director of the Vision Zero Network. We chat about why it’s so hard to make change, the implicit biases around designing for automobiles and the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims coming up on November 17th.
You can listen to this episode at Streetsblog USA or find it in our hosting archive.
Below is an AI generated full transcript of this episode:
[00:00:00] Jeff Wood: You’re listening to the Talking Headways Podcast Network. [00:00:06] This is Talking Headways, a weekly podcast about sustainable transportation and urban design. I’m Geoff Wood. This week, we’re joined by Leah Shahan, Executive Director of the Vision Zero Network. We chat about why it’s hard to make change, the implicit biases around designing for automobiles, And the World Day of Remembrance for road traffic victims. [00:00:23] Stay with us. Hey everybody, this week’s podcast is, as always, sponsored by our super generous Patreon supporters. Thanks so much for sponsoring and supporting the show and our Monday shows. We really appreciate all of you for keeping this thing going. To join this merry band of supporters, go to patreon. [00:00:42] com slash the overhead wire 2 a month. We’ll get you some stickers and a handwritten note 10 a month. We’ll get you one of our transportation scarves bus or bike only. Speaking of scars, it’s fall again. Get your bus and bike scarves at the newly revamped overhead wire. com. There you can find scarves, sign up for newsletters. [00:00:59] Get links to all of our various merch, including the bookshop book club books and the cars are cholesterol merch at T public, the overhead wire. com. There’s blocks with links in them. We’ve also got an awesome new search feature for subscribers on the website. So you can access all of our 100, 000 item newslink archive going back to 2013, everything we’ve ever posted in the newsletters in their tagged by topic and city sign up for a two week trial and get access to that for two weeks at the overhead wire. [00:01:26] com. Leah, welcome to the talking headways podcast. [00:01:29] Leah Shahum: Thank you. I’m so glad to be here. [00:01:31] Jeff Wood: We’re glad to have you here before we get started. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? [00:01:34] Leah Shahum: Sure, I live in Northern California and I have been obsessed with transportation for a long time. Just fell into it when I was volunteering long time ago for the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. [00:01:47] Ended up working there for a couple decades, believe it or not. And then founded a non profit called the Vision Zero Network, which I’m leading now. We’ve been around for about nine years and really working to promote the goal of Vision Zero. Zero traffic deaths or severe injuries among all people. Yeah, I’m really lucky to get to work in this space with people like you and awesome people you get to interview. [00:02:09] Jeff Wood: That’s awesome. What made you want to volunteer or what made you interested in transportation planning or transportation policy overall? Was it something that happened when you were a little kid or was it something that you grew into over time? [00:02:19] Leah Shahum: Great question. I love that. I grew up in the suburbs of northern Florida. [00:02:24] So Jacksonville, Florida, very sprawly very difficult to get around any way other than driving it like many Florida cities ranks regularly in the least safe places for walking. Largely because of its land use and auto dependency. As a kid, I wasn’t thinking about any of that, of course, but I think it really did, have an impact on me. [00:02:45] I remember as a kid wanting to be able to walk to the grocery store, which was probably, the equivalent of a quarter mile, but my parents would say, oh, no, because you’ve got to cross that big street. It was, it’s just 1 street. You That feeling of independence, really, or that lack, I should say, of independence really stuck with me. [00:03:00] And then I moved to San Francisco in my early twenties, and there I certainly thought, oh, I don’t need a car. I didn’t bring my car from Florida. I thought I’m going to take transit everywhere. I’m going to walk everywhere and transit was going through a bit of a a big meltdown. At that point, there were real problems with San Francisco’s transit. [00:03:18] So in order to get to my jobs I’ve started biking. It was really out of necessity. I liked to bike. I had biked as recreationally a little bit, but I’d never thought about biking as transportation. So it really was because transit was so unreliable at that time. And I had to get across town. So I started biking and really was. [00:03:36] Kind of amazed at that point at A, how easy and fun it was, but then B, on the flip side, how angry sometimes drivers could be with me and really just started living that frustration of, hey, I feel like I’m a benefit out here to you. I’m not taking a parking space. I’m not in your way, anyways, and then I stumbled into volunteering with the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and the rest is history. So yeah, no training or anything, just a passion project that’s grown and grown. [00:04:05] Jeff Wood: How do you feel about San Francisco’s infrastructure for biking now, as opposed to when you started volunteering? [00:04:12] Leah Shahum: It is a world of difference. And I say that not in a braggy way, in a way to say yay, good job. I do want to give credit where credit’s due. I think definitely advocates have done an amazing job around the country and in places like San Francisco, but I think city leaders are starting to get it right. [00:04:29] Yeah. You don’t want your city to be choked with car traffic, right? You don’t want to replace all these cool spaces with parking garages everywhere. You want more housing you want more park. So I do feel like that message is getting across more and more slowly, but it’s going to cross. And what a difference as a I’ll just think as a young woman biking in San Francisco. [00:04:51] It was common to be the only woman out there or, like within kind of eyesight, it was mostly guys that felt like biking, mostly like young, I don’t know, just tough looking hardy looking guys, which no offense to the guys. But now, when I’m looking around San Francisco, it’s moms and dads, it’s people of all ages and styles. [00:05:08] It’s tricycles. It’s, the cargo bikes. It really it brings me a lot of joy. Yes, that growth in biking and I’d say just as importantly, the growth and diversity of people biking, no doubt there’s a straight line there from, people feeling safe on the road and the advocacy that folks have done over the years to dedicate space to, safe biking and be able to retime lights and lower speed limits where possible. [00:05:36] And the great work that groups like WalkSanFrancisco and SFPC and others are doing there has been so important. [00:05:41] Jeff Wood: Yeah, I moved to San Francisco in 2006 and it’s a market difference from that time when I moved here and I was mostly taking transit. I have a bike. I sold my car in 2010 ish, 20, I always say 2010, but maybe it was 2012. [00:05:53] I can never remember exactly, but that’s okay because I just don’t have it anymore because of all the parking tickets really. And my clutch was broken, so that didn’t help either, but I used all the proceeds from selling my car to buy a bike and I started riding it a lot more. And it just, over the years it just changed and changed. [00:06:08] And it was really great. to have my loops that I would do. And I’m more of a recreational writer myself, but it’s nice to be able to get around places in the mission. And so that’s awesome. I’m also interested in thinking about what we’ve seen from other cities. We just had the Olympics, the Paralympics are happening now, and what’s happening in Paris, for example, like we’ve gone so far, but they’ve, gone really far in terms of the change that’s been made. [00:06:29] And obviously the Netherlands started in the sixties and seventies during the oil crisis, and they’ve changed a lot too. So it’s something that we can do to change more, but I’m curious about your thoughts about kind of cities changing over time. [00:06:40] Leah Shahum: Yeah. I think we need to show these stories of change more regularly because I think there is understandably this feeling of, Oh they were built that way. [00:06:50] And we weren’t right. America is this way. We’re never going to be that way. And that’s not the case, right? There’s lots of things you can look at and say that changed dramatically. And I won’t go too far, but, look at something like smoking, right? If my grandparents were alive right now and you told them, oh, you can’t smoke on this airplane. [00:07:07] You can’t smoke in this hotel. They would say you’re crazy, right? That’s a huge societal shift. So we can do these things. We’ve made shifts before. And yeah, to your point, absolutely. I used to point to things like the Netherlands and other places and say, look, even as recent as the seventies. [00:07:22] They had the same, traffic clogged, car clogged roads we did, and they were having high numbers of traffic deaths, et cetera, et cetera. And that’s all changed in our lifetime. Some of our lifetimes, not that long. But now when I look at Paris, I think that is such a huge example of a big, complex, busy, congested, very packed, dense city that really is a city. [00:07:45] showing what can be done when we make change. And I’ll pause and say, I think, sometimes we maybe are a little too hard on ourselves in the U. S. We certainly deserve constructive criticism and a lot of advocacy for change, but when you drill down a little bit, is any city in the U. [00:08:01] S. yet doing kind of the big transformation that Paris is? No. Can they? Yes, they can. But on the positive note, what I would say is, When you look at the pieces of change that some U. S. cities are making, the investment in, say, a corridor, a neighborhood, even a couple blocks or a few intersections, what we’re seeing time and time again is when there is real safety investment made, whether that’s redesigning streets, lowering speed limits, and adding traffic calming measures, improving transit, walking, biking, When you drill down and see these pieces that communities are doing, they are seeing benefit. [00:08:41] They are seeing more walking and biking and transit. They are seeing reduced crashes and injuries. It really is. We’re still at this micro level. I would say this kind of baby steps level in many places in the US, but I don’t think we need to wait. This does not need to be as incremental as it’s been. [00:08:56] I certainly think if we could find some, frankly, mayors, I think that’s what we need is mayoral leadership and others around them. To really get inspired by what’s happening in Paris, what’s happened in Paris the last, only a couple of years, really, or, within the last 5, 10 years, 1 could look at that and say, okay, I want to be the 1st American city to do that. [00:09:14] I’m going to scale up. What works, because we do know what works, I’m going to scale up these proven measures, safety measures, and I’m going to do it citywide and I’m going to be the 1st, say, Paris of the US. I am waiting anxiously for that local leader to step up. [00:09:30] Jeff Wood: You are working on this too. The Vision Zero Network, is part of that. [00:09:33] I’m wondering if you can expand on what the Vision Zero Network is and what you all do and how you’re getting to push, mayors and other folks in that direction that you say we can go. [00:09:41] Leah Shahum: Yeah, absolutely. Vision Zero Network, we’re a non profit. We work nationally. I’m based in California, but we’re working with literally dozens and dozens of communities across the nation, anybody that’s interested in the goal of Vision Zero again, zero fatalities or severe injuries among all road users, people walking, biking, driving, motorcycles, electric scooters, everybody. [00:10:00] And I’d say that the secret sauce is people like to learn from each other. There’s a lot of benefit in that peer kind of peer support and peer exchange. So as much as we can, and I want to, lift up things happening in Paris and Mexico city and Bogota, Colombia. We do want to tell those stories. [00:10:16] In reality, I find a lot of practitioners and policy makers can tune that out a little bit, and they really want U. S. examples to learn from. So a lot of what we do at Vision Zero Network is we really do facilitate learning from each other. Hey, let’s bring the transportation lead planner from Hoboken, New Jersey, which has had zero traffic deaths in the last seven years. [00:10:39] I’m knocking on wood. Let’s bring them together. So people from, Orlando, Florida and Durham, North Carolina and San Antonio, Texas can learn from them. Let’s hear from Seattle about something they tried that did not work. So this idea I’m really encouraged that people are really willing in this space again, whether they’re practitioners or advocates. [00:11:00] They’re really willing to share stories and learnings. Nobody wants to like slow anything down, recreate the wheel, right? So how are we really trying to invest in what works pressure where we need to pressure, frankly, for change. So that’s what we do is really providing that space, whether it be, doing webinars online that people can join for free. [00:11:21] Putting resources online, which people can access for free. And a big thing we do that isn’t as visible to the public, which I’ll mention is we do these peer cohorts. So we might have say vision zero city staff from a dozen or 15 cities meeting once a month to talk about really tricky stuff that frankly, isn’t as easy to talk about in public. [00:11:42] Maybe it’s maybe you want to be really frank about, hey, Thank you. My mayor says this, but she doesn’t actually back it up with action because a lot. We know this a lot of the biggest challenges. They’re not technical in nature. There are some of those. Yes, I agree. But most of the challenges people are facing, whether they’re again, practitioners and public agencies or advocates. [00:12:03] It’s this public will lack of public will public, resistance to change, etc. And how do we give like safe space to talk about that, where, a city staffer isn’t really encouraged to talk about politics per se, but the reality is, hey, if your mayor’s up for reelection. Things might be really different for the two months leading up to the election with what, she or he is willing to do or, maybe it’s a great time to push for more. [00:12:27] Maybe it’s not. So I feel like that’s the role we play is give that safe space to talk about the realities of how to make change. [00:12:36] Jeff Wood: Why is the political will so hard? I feel like traffic deaths have for several years have been over 40, 000 a year. Obviously, that’s not just pedestrians and cyclists, but it is, the overall kind of safety crisis that we’re having in the United States. [00:12:49] And it seems like there are a lot of places that are doing really great things. Like you mentioned, but there’s also a lot of hard puzzles to solve because of the political will. And I’m wondering what causes that. Is it just because of the auto centricity of it all, or is it because of the fear of change or is it something, deeper. [00:13:07] Leah Shahum: Great question. I feel like this is the million dollar question, right? I think there’s, for me, there’s two sides of it, with any issue, there’s going to be that fear of change piece, right? Going back to that, smoking example of someone to look back now and be like, Oh, is it going to be good for humanity if we curb smoking in these places? [00:13:24] One would, say, of course, do that. But back then it was quite a fight, right? For decades and decades. There is fear of change for, sometimes maybe legit reasons, sometimes more fear perception. Then I think for this issue, particularly, Berlin. I think there is such a a resigned complacency, partly because it’s not just, wow, we’re so auto dominated, but it’s been like so many systems and so much of our environment has been pounded into our heads. [00:13:55] I would say pretty implicitly. There’s explicit implicit, right? But a lot of implicit messages about. This is the norm and not only this is the norm that everyone needs to get around in a car, but then you look outside and you’re like that is actually what the physical environment is telling me because it’s terrifying to cross the street on foot, or I don’t have a transit option. [00:14:14] So it’s explicit too. It’s okay, not only is it normal to drive everywhere, but that is actually what the physical environment and your situation is lending you. And then there’s just this sense of, this is always how it’s been. And it’s always how it’s going to be. And it can’t change. [00:14:29] And I think some of that, is it, through various levels of kind of advertising and, et cetera, and it goes way, way back. And, I know if people have not read or heard of Peter Norton, you’re fantastic. Historian, researcher, author, professor who does a great job talking about things like, how did we, how did this idea of jaywalking evolve? [00:14:48] And even that term is very, derogatory, but we all say it, these things that, crash, not accident that comes to my mind for the Vision Zero world is. I grew up saying accident. Of course we do. We all have, right? And you listen to a news report. Oh, there was an accident on main street and a driver hit and killed a person walking with dark clothes on. [00:15:07] I’m just going to make that up or biking without a helmet. And you roll that back and you go, wait a minute. How did we get here? And, it’s not that we’re all bad people trying to victim blame. It’s not conscious like that. And even for the way the roads are designed today, it’s not that, I think, traffic engineers set out to consciously, create unsafe conditions. [00:15:25] Of course not right. People care about safety and health, etc. But there really been some very historic and systemic decisions made and kept in place that really. Make us just everyday people, I think, really resigned to and complacent that this is the norm and that, oh, people die sometimes when you have an advanced society like this, right? [00:15:47] People are going to die on the road. That doesn’t have to be the case. So how do we shake that up is the number one question, because again, we know how to, we know how to fix it. For the most part, we have tools. How do we shake ourselves out of this complacency? [00:16:03] Jeff Wood: It’s interesting because I think about a generational thing and I think about how much like I’ve been beat down on stuff over the years, right? [00:16:10] Starting when I was, 25 or something like that. I was like, Oh yeah, we can build subways everywhere. And then we can have bike lanes everywhere and do this thing and change into this city and do this. And then now I’m just like the politics are such that you have to have this person in office and then you have to do this and then you have to do that. [00:16:23] And then this isn’t going to happen because that instead of drawing crayons of the best subway network, you possibly can, or looking at what China has done on high speed rail, you’re just like and then the next generation is back where I was, 20 years ago being like, Oh, we can do this. [00:16:36] And we can do this. And I’m just wondering how much you just get pounded out of you, almost some sort of schnitzel or something where they’re just [00:16:43] Leah Shahum: Yeah, there’s certainly a generational aspect to things. I do think though, I think things come in waves, like anything. I think we see that in kind of politics today in the U S of, you had this swing effect, those decades, let’s say, or generation where it was all about like the car, it’s the savior. [00:16:58] I do believe we’re swinging back from that. Now, is it, is it happening to any degree or with the speed that it needs to know, but, this concept that we’re questioning it, that we’re having the conversations we are, that we’re saying, okay, do every single 1 of these streets need all this car traffic need all this. [00:17:17] Car quote unquote access or could it be limited? And then these are people spaces. These are bike spaces. These are transit only spaces. I look at something like bus rapid transit. You’re like, okay, who’s against bus rapid? You could make arguments about cost and benefit and such, but if 1 were to say, hey, transit is a good idea in this big city and this density and okay, transit’s a good city. [00:17:38] Now, let’s give it its own lane on this busy corridor. Let’s let transit run more freely and move people more quickly. Transcribed It’s more economic and all these good things, right? Yet, you look at San Francisco and look at how it took 2030 years for 1 major bus, rapid transit system to get built. [00:17:55] And then you use the example of China. I know Mexico City is another 1 where they’re just boom. They’re building these systems with a sense of urgency that I think we’re lacking in the US. And at the same time, it’s almost like we’re leading transportation decisions with this overly, in my mind, and I might, oh, now I’m going to say this out loud, but I might get skewered for it later, but a little bit like overly democratic process sometimes. [00:18:20] Shall we vote on whether there should be great, safe, equitable, affordable ways to get around? It’s almost like we’re letting people vote on that in a, Neighborhood by neighborhood or project by project way, and that’s not how it should work. In the end, I think we should have leaders should have the power and the vision to do what’s right for the community. [00:18:38] And just with that smoking example, right? That was the right thing to do. It was a hard thing, but that took policy change. It took carrots. It took sticks. We need that leadership at every level, local, state, federal. This should not be a, a piecemeal like every single person on their street, gets a vote over whether there should be parking or not somewhere. [00:18:55] That’s not how it works. It’s not how it should work. So how do we get out of that cycle? [00:19:00] Jeff Wood: Yeah, and it feels like a double standard too, because we’re always voting for transit projects in cities. We’re always voting for this. Bike lane, et cetera, but you never see anybody voting for a car project or a highway expansion or anything like that. [00:19:11] It’s always the engineer said we needed to do it. So let’s do it. And we can’t have that double standard of one mode has to have be democratic. And the other mode isn’t probably should be on the same level. I also want to ask you, there have been some changes though, right? At the federal level, at other levels, at places starting to think about, new laws and stuff that are moving in the right direction. [00:19:28] And USDOT has been starting to talk about, the safe systems approach a little bit more. And I’m curious what those kind of steps forward have been. [00:19:34] Leah Shahum: Honestly, I think this is a really big deal. Now, some people might call me a little naive on this. There’s still a lot more walk that needs to come with this talk. [00:19:42] But the talk is significant. It’s the federal level, U. S. Department of Transportation. They’ve actually officially Committed to, and they explicitly say our policy is the safe system approach, and that is the approach we’re going to take. This idea and for folks that maybe are unfamiliar, the safe system approaches is really the how do we get division 0 right? [00:20:01] Vision 0 is generally more of the goal, more of the aspiration, more of the, hey, let’s get excited about this. Let’s win hearts and minds with this idea of safe mobility and this vision of safe mobility for everyone. Now, how do you actually do that? Obviously, it takes a lot more than. [00:20:15] Saying the words and making a commitment, to the goal and the safe system approaches really is, to me, the most exciting part of that. And part of that is saying, okay, yes, obviously we want to, I need to design and run mobility systems are number 1 priority should be moving people safely. So we’re going to decide what is the safe speed limit based on. [00:20:35] What is safe to move people, right? We are going to decide on this road design based on what is safe to move people, the same way you would do vehicle. And this is much harder to do with the private sector being in charge, obviously, or somewhat in charge of vehicle regulations and such, but to really put that safety lens on 1st. [00:20:52] So it’s pretty exciting and I want to give credit to the leadership at U. S. Department of Transportation with Secretary Pete Buttigieg and then amazing people working there. Tons of amazing people working there who really get it. And I think. In particular, you saw a lot of former city staff people come into the US Department of Transportation with some really high ranking positions. [00:21:12] People like Polly Trottenberg is the deputy director or deputy administrator. I forget the title, but like number 2 in charge at the US Department of Transportation. And, she ran New York City’s Vision Zero program and Department of Transportation. You saw people who had run places like Minneapolis and other places. [00:21:27] On the ground, they get it right. They’re not just about, policy up in the air. They’re really about how does this work on the ground? Along with that safe system commitment, and I encourage people to check that out some of the policy and funding examples that I’m really excited about. We’ll start with funding this new funding pot. [00:21:44] Called safe streets and roads for all if people haven’t checked it out, please do look up safe streets and roads for all. And it is a new billion dollars a year dedicated to local regional and tribal communities working on vision 0 working on the safe system approach. So really good stuff. A lot of money and a lot of potential there. [00:22:05] And then on the policy side things I’m encouraged by few things. 1, I’d say they’re starting to push a little bit on that state level of because we have a real barrier. I would say at the state level, some states more than others, but across the board. States are really behind the times when it comes to investments in safety investments in true. [00:22:25] Healthy, accessible, equitable mobility, right? They’re the ones still building highways, and not investing in really what we have and making it better. The feds can only do so much here because obviously they, states have independence in different areas, but the feds are really. [00:22:39] I think, starting to help shine a light on the things that need to change at the state level. I would say, for those advocates out there, this is a really important time to just start looking up at that state level to make change. 1 other area. I’ll highlight that. I’m really impressed with the feds is really starting to dip their toe in and say, call out and start to try to address the inequities in the state. [00:23:00] In our transportation system, so from racial inequities to income inequities, certainly to modal inequities as well. Lots of overlap there, of course, too, but really calling out things to say hey, this freeway highway built, in the 50s or 60s, ripped this neighborhood apart and, we can’t change that, but how can the feds help, offer resources and support to mend that area to really go back in and help these communities of color, large part, low income communities rebuild and really have some support. [00:23:30] I do feel like they’re doing that. They’re thinking differently, even about enforcement. There’s been some changes, normally, that’s not the quote unquote, transportation bodies realm. It’s police department or law enforcement’s realm. We’re increasingly understanding we, as transportation people need to understand the intersection with the enforcement side of things and call out when it’s not working and when it’s inequitable, which is often. [00:23:53] So that’s another area. I’m just really seeing some new, very new and much needed leadership at the federal Department of transportation. So it’s encouraging. [00:24:00] Jeff Wood: Yeah, we had David editor and Kerry Watkins on to talk about the pyramid, the safe systems pyramid recently, which was really interesting and eye opening, right? [00:24:07] Thinking about, there’s all these things you can do, but they also can be structured in a way that, these things are the most important. And these things are things you can think about down the line, but everything should be considered. And especially when you’re thinking about the safe systems approach overall, [00:24:21] Leah Shahum: they’re so smart on that. [00:24:22] I’m glad that they were on. That’s great. [00:24:23] Jeff Wood: Yeah. And then also we have state lawmakers doing things. Scott Wiener just got 961, SB 961, through the legislature and towards the governor’s desk. Can you explain that one a little bit? Gavin Newsom might not sign it, may sign it, who knows what he ever does, but It’s moving forward, at least for now. [00:24:40] Leah Shahum: This one is so exciting. So exciting. This bill would make California the first state in the United States to basically require monitoring, limiting of speeds. In vehicles, as people probably know, and if you’re anything like me, it’s one of the more frustrating pieces of reality that, cars, average passenger vehicles. [00:25:04] I’m talking about go way too fast. There’s no reason. I ever need to go 160 miles per hour yet. My car goes 160 miles per hour. I can write and even the way the speedometer is set up. It’s used to make me think that’s in my range of possibility. Anyways, unless I’m a race car driver, this is insane. [00:25:22] The best thing to do would be auto makers to do the right thing and change their ways. Let’s keep working on that. But that’s going to be a slow, high hill to climb. Meanwhile, the 2nd, best thing would be federal transportation agencies. The regulators, they should be doing the right thing and requiring the vehicle makers to do these things. [00:25:40] They’re not there yet. They’re pretty much missing an action on this topic. So huge kudos to state Senator Scott Weiner for leading the way in California, introducing this bill that would, if it passes, it’s past like both the Senate and assembly, and it’s awaiting the governor’s signature as of this recording, at least, and what this bill would do is require all new cars built or sold in California starting in 2030. [00:26:08] So there’s some time there. All new vehicles built or sold in California to have both a audio and visual little sensor thing to let the driver know when they’ve exceeded over 10 miles per hour. Now, I just want to pause for a 2nd and say how eminently reasonable this is. It’s not. This is what’s called a passive speed limiter. [00:26:31] There’s also active speed limiters and I hope we get there soon. But the active speed limiter would be something where your vehicle. Literally slows down [00:26:39] Jeff Wood: like a governor, [00:26:40] Leah Shahum: governor. That’s right. So it would be more proactive, obviously this passive one, it’s still something it’s, if you can think about seatbelts for a long time, you just had your seatbelt. [00:26:48] And then at some point they started doing the ding, the little audio thing so that it would drive you crazy unless you put your seatbelt on, which it’s a good thing, right? Some people just forget, maybe they need to be reminded. So that’s what this would be eminently reasonable, a big first step. [00:27:04] I will say. Other countries are way ahead of us in doing this. The European Union already mandates this and all new vehicles and they’re working on retrofitting old vehicles. And this is not a big cost. By the way, this is not something that’s going to be, skyrocketing the cost of a new car or anything like that. [00:27:22] It’s a really reasonable cost in the end. We’ll certainly save people money and obviously a lot of pain in reducing severe crashes. So it’s a huge deal. And we sure hope the governor signs it and he has national aspirations, which of course he does. This is a great place to show some national leadership. [00:27:48] Jeff Wood: My family and I, we went to France in 2019 in the spring and we rented some vehicles to drive around Normandy and stuff. And the van that I was driving had that, the little red square in the middle and it had your speed limit, and the speed limit said 35 on roads that were 35 and whatnot. [00:28:04] And it would flash, it would get the red square would go on when you went over. So it’s not like it’s something that is super invasive or tough, but you would think from reading some of the tweets and other things, that would be the end of the world if this bill passed, which is amazing. [00:28:19] Leah Shahum: It’s wild. And you just think about these very simple technologies that exist today. And I’ll just say, There’s so much buzz and media attention, et cetera, around like car tech of the future, right? Autonomous vehicles. And I, I don’t want to, that’s a whole other ball. [00:28:34] Jeff Wood: That’s a whole other podcast. [00:28:36] Leah Shahum: Will there be safety benefits from that? Sure. Are there downsides to sure there are, but this technology we’re talking about with the speed limiters, this exists today. It’s so inoffensive. It’s so Easy. These things we could and should be doing right now. It’s just, we’re ignoring the obvious in so many ways right now. [00:28:54] Jeff Wood: Are there other things that you’re super excited about that are coming around the bend? [00:28:57] Leah Shahum: Great question. Yeah. I am really encouraged by the growing on the ground advocacy we’re seeing, and it gets back to that idea of complacency, right? Cause we’re not going to change that complacency unless more people on the ground in everyday regular communities are saying, you Enough is enough this has to change. [00:29:16] So I want to commend groups like families for safe streets. They are an amazing, sadly, growing group of people who’ve either been involved in crashes and injure themselves or often lost loved ones. The started in New York City, there’s now more than a dozen chapters around the US, and this is the club. [00:29:34] They say that nobody wants to be a part of, but, huge kudos to folks who are coming out, really channeling their grief and their pain. Into advocacy change, so that’s places where you see, members of families for safe streets in California traveling up to Sacramento by the bus loads to lobby or to advocate at the assembly and at the state Senate to say, hey, this is not just some theory. [00:29:56] This is not some just policy wonk issue. This is life and death. We lost loved ones. And these crashes could have been prevented or at least. Lessened in severity so I think the organizing that’s happening, we look at groups like mad, I think, is good models mothers against drunk driving people are familiar with right? [00:30:15] That’s relatively recent or, gosh, in the 80s and but it’s not that long to think, that advocacy around. Drunk driving really didn’t exist in a big, meaningful way until relatively recently. How can we help bring that to Vision Zero and to speed management and these issues? [00:30:29] I think that’s exciting. And then, I think we’ll see that really flexing, that advocacy flexing its muscle on World Day of Remembrance, which is an annual event. And it’s World Day of Remembrance for road traffic victims. And people are basically attending to that thinking about that November 17th. [00:30:46] It is this year, November 17th 2024 is the day that folks around the world and definitely around the US will be coming together and really uniting their voices and saying, hey, enough is enough. And we can change this. Every community is going to have its own different ask, what Washington, D. [00:31:01] C. is asking for locally is going to be different than, Eugene, Oregon or anywhere else, but really uniting in this idea of. We have a traffic violence problem. And it is a problem that can be fixed again. We have solutions. We have strategies. We have know how we need the political and public. So last year, we had for world day of remembrance about 70 U. [00:31:24] S. communities holding events. Some really big events with hundreds and hundreds of people. Some smaller events with a handful of people, but we had about 70 communities and we’re hoping for even more this year and really want to. Especially, you want the media to pay attention, you want local and state and federal elected leaders to really see this and see it as an issue they need to be paying more attention to. [00:31:45] Jeff Wood: It brings up a good point about the stories that are going to be told on that day about what’s happened to folks who have lost loved ones and the personal stories. Oftentimes, and I feel like we’ve talked about this before. The number itself that gets tossed out there is a number and people don’t really necessarily associate any pain or suffering or some sort of emotional value to that number. [00:32:06] It’s just a number. And so I feel like bringing that out into personal stories and making sure people understand what those numbers actually represent is a really important part of this whole thing. [00:32:16] Leah Shahum: Absolutely. It is a game changer to sit in an office with an elected and see You know, see their facial expression change and kind of see their heart soften a little bit when you have someone there, a mother who’s lost a child, a person who’s lost a sibling or a friend, talk about this impact and talk about often the What could have been done if this intersection were designed differently if there were better street lighting here if there were more safe places here to walk if the speed limits were lowered and each of those examples is something that elected and others can change could have affected. [00:32:54] So how do we look forward? And again, I, commend them so much for channeling these awful stories, but this grief into positive change for the future. And I think it’s probably the most powerful tool that we have for change. [00:33:09] Jeff Wood: It’s interesting because we had Wes Marshall on the show to talk about his book, Killed by a Traffic Engineer. [00:33:14] And he tells a story in the book about, him teaching his students about, traffic. Safety traffic deaths and those types of things. And he has a kind of a tough class a few times a year where he goes through stories of actual people who have passed away, because he feels like that impacts the students a little bit more. [00:33:30] And so he’s relaying that pain and suffering in a way that’s different from maybe others who would just say there’s 40, 000 people who die every year and 40, 000, that’s the number that gets passed away. But there’s a story behind every person that actually gets hit by a car or hit by a driver, I should say. [00:33:48] We can talk about language in a second, but that’s a really important thing to think about when we’re talking about these things is that actual people that are behind it. [00:33:55] Leah Shahum: That’s right. And what an impact that makes. So I really appreciate that story he shares. I’ve been shocked, I meet more and more traffic engineers and planners, which is great. [00:34:04] Some of my best friends are not planners and engineers. As I meet more traffic engineers I’m truly shocked. And this is more the case with older generation, not super much older, but older. Safety emphasis there is in their engineering training. They person after person will tell me. [00:34:24] Oh, yeah, I never had a class on safety or that wasn’t really part of our curriculum or I had to go take this elective to think about this. What? How is that the case? And I’m sure West Marshall spoke a lot about that, but that is a fundamental core problem. Who’s overseeing this curriculum and how do we change it? [00:34:43] Because that’s. Really important. [00:34:46] Jeff Wood: Yeah. I highly recommend folks go back and listen to that one, that episode. Cause we talked about that quite a bit, the education system and what it takes to be an engineer and how you get signed off on really easily. And you don’t even, you might have to take one transportation class in a city curriculum and things like that. [00:34:58] So it’s it blows your mind [00:35:02] Leah Shahum: low hanging fruit for us. It’s going to take time to get there, but like low hanging fruit to really. Yeah. Influence the next generation of influencers. [00:35:10] Jeff Wood: For sure. I do want to go back to that thing I just brought up about language and framing and those types of things. [00:35:15] I’m wondering what the language tells us about where we are and where we need to be, because we do have this existing lexicon of terms that are biased towards automobility. We have accident and we have the car hitting people and things. I, and I just said it. So it’s it’s stuck in there. [00:35:31] Right. [00:35:32] Leah Shahum: Ingrained. I’m encouraged here, it’s not everywhere, but I do, just looking over the last 8 years or so, you’re seeing this tide turn, I think, with some elected with planners and engineers and advocates, certainly to call that out and say, hey, the word accident traffic accident. [00:35:47] Portrays an inevitability, just, oh, it’s going to happen. It’s inevitable. And to call it a crash and to put it more clearly and explicitly putting even blame aside. But in terms of could this thing be avoided? I really am seeing a big change. I’ll say there’s a number of entities that I’ll say I’m particularly impressed, like police chiefs, the police chiefs in major cities who we talk with, and, we’ll be at an event and they’ll correct somebody and go, Oh, it’s not an accident, it’s a crash. [00:36:15] Whoa. Okay. Now that’s, not most police chiefs, I’m guessing, but, they’re changing the terminology from accident report to crash report. If we can be getting through to that kind of community, I think media is a huge missing piece. And obviously it’s a big world, but one thing we’re really pushing around world day of remembrance is, Hey, when you’re doing your outreach for your events and sharing stories, like we were saying and data, it’s a great opportunity to educate folks on the difference between these terms, crash and accident, and the idea of victim blaming, right? How do we call out this concept of, no, this person wasn’t, asking for something by wearing dark clothes. They were wearing regular clothes. How do we really help people look beyond that individual level and look up at the systemic change that needs to happen and not victim blame? [00:37:01] I feel like having those conversations more and more is so important and it’s happening. You’re even seeing it, if you go look at some of the great quotes over the last couple of years from U. S. D. O. T. Secretary Pete Buttigieg, right? He literally says words like, these are not accidents, these are crashes we can prevent, I’m paraphrasing, but he says it eloquently, but to see, a major leader like that and somebody who’s, obviously really positioned well to influence, to see him recognize and emphasize that language makes a difference is great. [00:37:32] Jeff Wood: So what’s next for Vision Zero? [00:37:34] Leah Shahum: Ooh, say the tough question till the end. Yeah, I think a big focus for us is on and will be on showing what works, even if they’re smaller scenarios or examples. I think we need to build the political will to do what works, but just as much build the political understanding that we Things can work that things can change right back to this complacency. [00:38:03] We’re in this kind of place where the status quo feels like, oh, this is all we’re ever going to have. Even if people are not consciously thinking about it, that’s okay, this is the way it is. How do we lift up. More examples that people can relate to again, even if they’re small scale, but to say, okay, going to make up a place madison wisconsin lowered speed limits and. [00:38:25] 6 months a year later, they saw this positive change or better yet, they did a multitude of safety interventions, right? They lowered speed limits and they. Increase signage of speed limit. So people actually know what the speed limit is versus guessing. And they also redesigned their top 10 most dangerous corridors so that they were more safe and complete streets, which also slowed people down and they added traffic calming throughout the city and they daylighted intersections and all of these things that are absolutely known entities and known ways. [00:38:59] If we can show that, hey, this works, and if you scale it, it’s going to have a big impact at the same time. I’m talking more local. We’ve got to shake up the state and federal level to do better, especially the state level. There’s so many places state leadership can do better. And if they’re not going to lead and do better, they at least need to get out of the way of locals doing better time after time. [00:39:22] Not only our state agencies and leaders. Not living up to their own, I would say responsibilities, but they’re actually blocking either explicitly or implicitly blocking local agencies or regional agencies or tribes from doing better in terms of safety. These are places where they really, they limit the use of, say, safety technology, or they limit. [00:39:46] Weather speeds can be lowered or make it really difficult, or they limit traffic calming devices that can be used, or they make it really difficult to do it. So what you come up against is either a true wall that you can’t do something or so much bureaucracy and barriers that. Your average bear is just going to give up and say, we can’t do that. [00:40:06] So we really need that. I think we want to shine a brighter light on the state and federal needs as well. So those are biggies for us. And then, I think just again, bringing those stories to the forefront, working with partners, like families for safe streets and helping make sure that the public and the politicians who make these decisions. [00:40:24] Recognize the human toll that our status quo is taking. [00:40:28] Jeff Wood: Yeah, that preemption part that you were talking about I feel is a big thing especially at what we’ve seen from like places like texas where it was in the party platform for the republicans to not have complete streets or The governor basically told the commissioner of the texas transportation commission bruce bug that he Had to take back a state highway from the city of San Antonio. [00:40:48] They had to have three lanes instead of two on a street that was meant for bike lanes and improvements that people in the city voted for. And so there’s lots of that happening too, where some states are actively going against good safety measures versus passively, which is frustrating as well. And we just talked with Warren Logan too, from Oakland about the hard lessons that they’ve learned about how long it takes to get a project. [00:41:11] And when you’re, reaching out to folks on 14th street about a bike lane and they’re mad that they feel like it’s going to happen like in the next year, but it doesn’t happen for four years. There’s a disconnect there about how fast you can get things done and maybe we should make it so that we can get it done in a year instead of four years. [00:41:25] So lots of like little things that we can do to move things along at the city level as well as the state and federal. [00:41:32] Leah Shahum: Yeah, and I heard some great advice from the wonderful leader of the Denver Streets partnership, the advocacy group. Her name is Jill Locantour, doing awesome work there. [00:41:40] Jeff Wood: You love Jill. [00:41:41] Leah Shahum: Fantastic, Jill, yeah, and just so good on all the issues. She really talked about, we were having this discussion in equity. Perspective, particularly around racial and income equity. How are we helping address, many problems that transportation systems have caused and policies of cause, she was really thinking about how do you build that trust with communities that yeah, what you say is going to happen is going to happen, but also that you are listening and changing. [00:42:02] Where possible where needed and learning and she really brought up the point of how do we how we iterate more and I think we are seeing more communities do quick builds and do pilots and that’s so important right how do we show more of what’s possible and adjust where it needs to be adjusted but to recognize look everybody doesn’t need to go to paris or amsterdam to see this or even watch videos like some of us wonky people do about these places and you know get all starry eyed the reality is people want to imagine. [00:42:30] Everybody wants a better community and wants a better future for their kids and such. How do we help people see that even if it’s small scale on their own street, even if it’s only for a week, but to then say, oh, I didn’t know we could do that. Oh, I could we could have less car traffic. [00:42:43] It could be a little quieter here. We could have more green space. My kid could bike a walk across the street to the store. Let’s do more to show what’s possible. I think that’s a huge opportunity with these iterations and kind of quicker builds. [00:42:56] Jeff Wood: Is there anything that surprised you about the implementation of Safe Streets policies around the country? [00:43:01] Leah Shahum: Good question. I guess I’m still, even though I’ve been doing this a long time, I’m still a little bit lured that there’s not more of a just natural inclination to want safer conditions, right? It’s amazing to me that even in some of these best case scenarios where you have clear data and you have compelling stories and you have, maybe even, great alignment with leadership and agencies and et cetera, et cetera. [00:43:28] You’ve still got those folks that come out and say, get off my lawn or, not in my backyard and really. Fighting against what would be a safety change, because of the impression that parking is gonna get harder, the impression this or that. Like these pieces are still there so often and it is ultimately what’s slowing things down in so many ways. [00:43:49] I don’t know if, maybe if we turn a corner in a way and the scales tip a little bit where it’s okay, people have more opportunities to see. What positive alternatives look like what a truly safe, livable community looks like if people could see that more with their own eyes, will there be more demand for that in people’s own neighborhoods? [00:44:06] And will there be less opposition to that? I hope so. I share 1 more. Actually, I was shocked to learn recently that 1 of the goals actions listed in the project 2025. Agenda, the federal level is to eliminate vision. Zero is to stop redesigning streets for walking and biking. The language is very explicit. [00:44:33] It is very pointed in a way that would just roll back tremendous. Progress and put an end to this direction that we’re tiptoeing towards around safer and more equitable streets. And the fact that, at that federal level, frankly, 1 of the major parties is looking that directly at something like vision 0 and wanting to eliminate it is just terrifying. [00:45:01] And I think maybe just a good reminder to us that, this amplifies way beyond the local level. [00:45:07] Jeff Wood: So if more people want to find out about what you all are working on, or the world day of remembrance that’s happening on November 17th, where can they find out more about the activities? [00:45:16] Leah Shahum: That’s right. Yeah. Check out world day of remembrance website. That’s. W D O R dash USA. org. So that is for World Day of Remembrance. And then they can learn more about our work at Vision Zero Network at the website, visionzeronetwork. org. And we do have a monthly e newsletter too. It’s a great way to stay in touch with what’s going around. [00:45:35] Jeff Wood: And where can folks find you if you wish to be found? [00:45:37] Leah Shahum: Yeah, I’ll happily be found. Leah at visionzeronetwork. org. And you can also find that on our website. [00:45:46] Jeff Wood: Awesome. Leah, thanks for joining us. We really appreciate your time. [00:45:49] Leah Shahum: Thank you so much, Jeff. This was fun. And I appreciate all your thoughtful questions and all your great work.
